
As the new year gets underway with the looming re-inauguration of United States President Donald J Trump, countries and entire regions are having to manoeuvre and realign in view of an accelerated breakdown of the post-Second World War rules-based liberal international order.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Asean, where Indonesia has taken the lead in hedging by becoming a full member of the grouping known as Brics+, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and early last year adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
Prior to Indonesia's decision for full membership, Brics+ in October last year registered eight "partner countries" consisting of Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. After relative inertia for more than a decade, the resurgence of Brics+ appears sudden, tentative, hesitant, and reactive. Both its expansion of membership and addition of partner countries were ultimately fewer than earlier announced.
Owing to domestic politics and geopolitical concerns, Argentina and Saudi Arabia opted out of membership for the time being. On partnerships, Algeria, Nigeria, Turkey, and Vietnam also ambivalently took a pause out of their own geostrategic considerations. While combined population, economic size and geographical reach make Brics+ a compelling and formidable geostrategic vehicle vis-a-vis Western entities, such as the G-7, its constituent countries appear motley and apparently so unaligned that future progress and actual collective outcome may be problematic.
Yet Brics+ merits wide attention because of its reactive nature and logic, as there is no other intergovernmental body like it. The attraction and momentum of Brics+ are undoubtedly driven by the US under the second Trump administration. Under President Biden, Brics+ became a kind of shelter for Russia after its Ukraine invasion and consequent international sanctions. This is why the sudden burst of Brics+ activities and discussions with concrete additions of new members and partners took place in 2022-24.
President Trump shook up the international system with drama and fanfare, unlike any other major leader in recent memory. One of his outbursts was a pledge to slap 100% tariffs on Brics+ countries if they were to try to further "de-dollarise" and come up with an alternative global reserve currency. The issue of "dollar hegemony" and the default of the US dollar as the global reserve currency has been a sticking point for Brics+ and Global South, as well as other developing countries, for decades.
The resentment against dollar dominance in the global economy became more acute during the Russian aggression and its consequent Western sanctions that included the "weaponisation" of Western industrial, trade and monetary/financial policies. Developing countries, including those in the Brics+ frame, saw it as bullying and double standards in view of what Israel, for example, has been carrying out in its Middle East wars.
With China and Russia as the core of Brics+, and with India in support vis-à-vis US aggressiveness and assertiveness, Mr Trump's tariff threat did not go down well. Mr Trump's ire and typically blustered response were unsurprising and proved the point of Brics+ that "Global South" countries need to organise on their own to reduce dependence on the weight of the US economy and its currency unit.
Further US weaponisation of trade policy and geoeconomic toolkit will likely push developing economies in Brics+ and others in the Global South in this direction for fear of excessive reliance on US trade and investment and being punished for it when Washington deems fit.
The new Brics+ partners that were added clearly see the outfit as an insurance policy amidst geoeconomic turbulence and geopolitical turmoil, underpinned by a broad breakdown of the rules-based international order. Partnership in Brics+ allows them to access loans from the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai, and benefit from trade and investment opportunities. The Trump tariff threat has apparently held back some of the potential Brics+ partners in Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, which holds the largest trade surplus with the US among Southeast Asian economies.
With Indonesia taking the plunge as a full member, Malaysia and Thailand will have to consider the elevation of partnership to membership carefully. The US under Trump II can still wield enormous clout geoeconomically as well as geopolitically. A longstanding US treaty ally, Thailand has been leaning more towards Beijing with its domestic turn to autocracy. However, after nine years of a military-backed regime, Thailand turned a page with an election in May 2023.
Although the largest vote winner was later dissolved, the second-placed Pheu Thai Party is leading a coalition government that brought back Thaksin Shinawatra to effectively run the country unofficially behind his daughter, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. As long as Thailand stays away from outright autocracy regardless of its varying shades of popular rule, Bangkok can be expected to be measured. Mr Thaksin did have close ties with President Vladimir Putin, but with Mr Trump's trade and tariff posture, Thailand is unlikely to jump head over heels for full Brics+ membership. Similarly, Malaysia has promoted denser ties with China but not at the expense of its relations with the US. In other words, when push comes to shove, Southeast Asian partners of Brics+ will likely take into serious consideration Washington's threats and preferences.
To be sure, Brics+ largely comprises autocratic regimes, notwithstanding India's part as the largest democracy in the world. Being in such an autocratic club could adversely affect Southeast Asia's democratisation prospects.
The three Brics+ countries so far -- Indonesia as a member and Malaysia and Thailand as partners -- are delicate democracies that need institutional nurturing and safeguarding to consolidate further. Mingling with the likes of Belarus and Russia cannot be conducive to further democratisation in Southeast Asia.